MULTI-HOPE: A tool for multiple floor layout problems

The objective of most facility layout problems is to minimize material handling cost, which is directly proportional to both the distance between the machines and the mix, as well as the volume of products handled. The mix and volume of products are dependent on the demand patterns, and the distance is dependent on the layout plan used for the facility. Because it is relatively difficult to change the demand patterns, and hence the mix and volume of products, the primary focus of most designers has been to deal with the distance attribute of the material handling costs. The limitations of available horizontal space create a need to explore vertical expansion of facilities. This brings up new aspects of vertical material handling and flow that need to be considered in the facility design problem. In this paper, we present a genetic algorithm-based heuristic for generating block layouts for multiple-floor layout problems. This approach produces better solutions than existing simulated annealing-based heuristics for all but one of five multiple-floor test problems available in the literature.